Wide area networks, such as the World Wide Web (“WWW”) or the Internet, have become increasingly popular modalities for the advertisement of products. Indeed, much like broadcast medium, for example, radio and television, advertisers will sponsor content in exchange for the right to display their advertisements. Indeed, advertisers sponsor most of the content on the WWW. The sponsorship provided by the advertiser supports the host providers and, in some instances, facilitates free hosting for individual users.
To be effective as a means of generating and promoting products or services, advertisers desire high visibility for their advertisements, that is, advertisers desire to display their advertisements as frequently as possible, wherein the advertisements are not easily avoided or evaded by the consumer. At variance with the advertisers' desire, users do not want to be disturbed in their activities. Currently, unlike the broadcast medium wherein the advertisements are placed in between the content of the main programming, advertisements on the WWW can be displayed at any time, and thus, typically interrupt the content that the user is viewing.
At least one current type of advertising on the WWW is a banner advertisement. Banner advertisements are typically placed at the top or bottom of the page and require the user to affirmatively click on the advertisement in order to visit a web site that contains more detailed information regarding the goods or services indicated in the banner advertisement. Most users now recognize banner advertisements and do not click on these advertisements.
Another form of advertising on the WWW is in the form of a pop-up advertisement. A pop-up advertisement is a window that opens in a new browser window when a user visits a web site. The pop-up window opens in front of the user's primary browser window, thereby forcing the user to take affirmative action, such as, for example, close the advertising window, or forcing the user to view the advertisement and click to the advertiser's site. In many instances, the advertisement fails to be completely displayed as the user closes the pop-up window prior to the completion of the advertisement loading.
In addition to the initial inconvenience and interruption that the pop-up windows cause to the user, the pop-up window advertisements create further problems. For instance, despite the user closing the pop-up window, these windows do not always remain closed. Indeed, at times, if the user visits another page on the site with the pop-up code, the advertisement will reappear, thereby causing the user to once again have to close the window. Further, if the user leaves the page containing the pop-up window, the pop-up window will reopen upon the user's return to the page. Similarly, if the page is reloaded for any reason, the pop-up advertisement will open again. This inability to permanently close these pop-up windows creates a further annoyance for the user as well as exacerbating the for the advertiser and possibly for the web site. As this annoyance can cause a user to avoid web sites, the web site may experience a decrease in traffic, as well as, a decrease in the willingness of other web sites to direct traffic to the sites that utilize these types of advertisements.
A need in the industry exists for a method of presenting unsolicited data to users without interrupting the user's activities and in a manner that allows the unsolicited data to be reviewed by the user at the user's convenience. Further, a need exists for a method of presenting unsolicited data that is monitored such that the unsolicited data is not automatically and continuously reintroduced to the user, but rather, is presented to the user at a predefined rate.